Basics

ColorScheme objects

When you start using ColorSchemes.jl, it loads a set of pre-defined ColorSchemes, and stores them in a dictionary called colorschemes.

A ColorScheme is a Julia object which contains:

• an array of colors (eg RGB(0.1, 0.3, 0.4))
• a string defining a category
• a string that can contain descriptive notes

To access one of these built-in colorschemes, use its symbol:

ColorSchemes.leonardo

The display depends on your working environment. If you’re using a notebook or IDE environment, the colors in the colorscheme should appear as a swatch in a cell or in a Plots window. Otherwise, you’ll see the colors listed as RGB values:

32-element Array{RGB{Float64},1}:
 RGB{Float64}(0.0548203,0.016509,0.0193152)
 RGB{Float64}(0.0750816,0.0341102,0.0397083)
 RGB{Float64}(0.10885,0.0336675,0.0261204)
 RGB{Float64}(0.100251,0.0534243,0.0497594)
 ...
 RGB{Float64}(0.620187,0.522792,0.216707)
 RGB{Float64}(0.692905,0.56631,0.185515)
 RGB{Float64}(0.681411,0.58149,0.270391)
 RGB{Float64}(0.85004,0.540122,0.136212)
 RGB{Float64}(0.757552,0.633425,0.251451)
 RGB{Float64}(0.816472,0.697015,0.322421)
 RGB{Float64}(0.933027,0.665164,0.198652)
 RGB{Float64}(0.972441,0.790701,0.285136)

You can access the array of colors as:

ColorSchemes.leonardo.colors

By default, the colorschemes aren’t imported. To avoid using the prefixes, you can import the ones that you want:

julia> import ColorSchemes.leonardo
julia> leonardo
32-element Array{RGB{Float64},1}:
 RGB{Float64}(0.0548203,0.016509,0.0193152)
 RGB{Float64}(0.0750816,0.0341102,0.0397083)
 RGB{Float64}(0.10885,0.0336675,0.0261204)
 RGB{Float64}(0.100251,0.0534243,0.0497594)
 ...
 RGB{Float64}(0.757552,0.633425,0.251451)
 RGB{Float64}(0.816472,0.697015,0.322421)
 RGB{Float64}(0.933027,0.665164,0.198652)
 RGB{Float64}(0.972441,0.790701,0.285136)

You can reference a single value of a scheme:

leonardo[3]

-> RGB{Float64}(0.10884977211887092,0.033667530751245296,0.026120424375656533)

Or you can ‘sample’ the scheme at any point between 0 and 1 using get or getindex:

get(leonardo, 0.5)

-> RGB{Float64}(0.42637271063618504,0.28028983973265065,0.11258024276603132)

leonardo[0.5]

-> RGB{Float64}(0.42637271063618504,0.28028983973265065,0.11258024276603132)

get(cscheme::ColorScheme, inData :: Array{Number, 2}, rangescale=:clamp)
get(cscheme::ColorScheme, inData :: Array{Number, 2}, rangescale=(minVal, maxVal))

img = get(colorschemes[:leonardo], rand(10,10)) # displays in Juno Plots window, but
save("testoutput.png", img)      # you'll need FileIO or similar to do this

img2 = get(colorschemes[:leonardo], 10.0 * rand(10, 10), :extrema)
img3 = get(colorschemes[:leonardo], 10.0 * rand(10, 10), (1.0, 9.0))

# Also works with PerceptualColourMaps
using PerceptualColourMaps # warning, installs PyPlot, PyCall, LaTeXStrings
img4 = get(PerceptualColourMaps.cmap("R1"), rand(10,10))

get(cs::ColorScheme, g::Color{T,1} where T<:Union{Bool, AbstractFloat, FixedPoint})

The colorschemes dictionary

The ColorSchemes module automatically provides a number of predefined schemes. All the colorschemes are stored in an exported dictionary, called colorschemes.

colorschemes[:summer] |> show
    ColorScheme(
        ColorTypes.RGB{Float64}[
            RGB{Float64}(0.0,0.5,0.4),
            RGB{Float64}(0.01,0.505,0.4),
            RGB{Float64}(0.02,0.51,0.4),
            RGB{Float64}(0.03,0.515,0.4),
            ...
            RGB{Float64}(1.0,1.0,0.4)],
       "matplotlib",
       "sampled color schemes, sequential linearly-increasing shades of green-yellow")

Pre-defined schemes

In the following images, the first swatch draws the colors in the scheme; the lower swatch samples the scheme from 0 to 1 at intervals of 0.01.

✦ cmocean

From "Beautiful colormaps for oceanography": cmocean

✦ scientific

From Scientific colormaps

✦ matplotlib

From matplot

✦ colorbrewer

From ColorBrewer

✦ gnuplot

From GNUPlot

✦ colorcet

From "collection of perceptually accurate colormaps"

✦ Seaborn

From "colorschemes used by Seaborn, a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib."

✦ ggthemes/tableau

From "ggthemes tableau palettes"

✦ CVD/(ColorBlind)-friendly schemes

Colorschemes designed with color-vision deficient users in mind, by authors such as Paul Tol, Masataka Okabe, Kei Ito, and Martin Krzywinski.

✦ Flags

Colors extracted from flags of different countries and regions, downloaded from Flagpedia. Intended to represent these regions in visualizations, but not necessarily effective. Many flags have similar colorschemes. The flags are named according to the region's ISO3166 two-letter abbreviation (often the same as top-level WWW domain), with any hyphens removed.

✦ general and miscellaneous

colorschemes

colorschemes[:summer] |> show
   ColorScheme(
      ColorTypes.RGB{Float64}[
          RGB{Float64}(0.0,0.5,0.4), RGB{Float64}(0.01,0.505,0.4), RGB{Float64}(0.02,0.51,0.4), RGB{Float64}(0.03,0.515,0.4),
          ...

scheme = rand(keys(colorschemes))

reverse(cscheme)

Finding colorschemes

Use the findcolorscheme() function to search through the pre-defined colorschemes. The string you provide can occur in the colorscheme’s name, in the category, or in the notes. It’s interpreted as a case-insensitive regular expression.

julia> findcolorscheme("magen")

colorschemes containing "magen"

spring               (notes) sampled color schemes, linearl...
cool                 (notes) sampled color schemes, linearl...
hsv                  (notes) sampled color schemes, red-yel...

found 3 results for "magenta"

julia> findcolorscheme("cmocean")
colorschemes containing "cmocean"

oxy                  (category) cmocean
matter               (category) cmocean
dense                (category) cmocean
balance              (category) cmocean
thermal              (category) cmocean
tempo                (category) cmocean
grays                (category) cmocean
speed                (category) cmocean
turbid               (category) cmocean
solar                (category) cmocean
ice                  (category) cmocean
haline               (category) cmocean
algae                (category) cmocean
amp                  (category) cmocean
deep                 (category) cmocean
delta                (category) cmocean
curl                 (category) cmocean
phase                (category) cmocean

found 18 results for "cmocean"

findcolorscheme(str)

colorschemes[:cscheme].notes

If you prefer, you can ‘roll your own’ search.

[k for (k, v) in ColorSchemes.colorschemes if occursin(r"colorbrew"i, v.category)]
265-element Array{Symbol,1}:
 :BuPu_6
 :Spectral_4
 :RdYlGn_5
 ⋮
 :BrBG_8
 :Oranges_4

Make your own colorscheme

Using Colors.jl, you can quickly define a range of colors and use it to make a colorscheme:

using Colors, ColorSchemes
cs1 = ColorScheme(range(colorant"red", colorant"green", length=5))

using Colors, ColorSchemes
cs1 = ColorScheme(reverse(Colors.sequential_palette(300, 100, logscale=true)))

Or you can easily make your own by building an array:

using Colors, ColorSchemes
mygrays = ColorScheme([RGB{Float64}(i, i, i) for i in 0:0.1:1.0])

Give it a category or some added notes if you want:

mygrays = ColorScheme([RGB{Float64}(i, i, i) for i in 0:0.1:1.0],
    "my useful schemes", "just some dull grey shades")

although this scheme won’t end up in the colorschemes dictionary.

Another example, starting with a two-color scheme, then building a gradient from the first color to the other.

myscheme = ColorScheme([Colors.RGB(1.0, 0.0, 0.0), Colors.RGB(0.0, 1.0, 0.0)],
               "custom", "twotone, red and green")
ColorScheme([get(myscheme, i) for i in 0.0:0.01:1.0])

Another way is to use loadcolorscheme() function:

loadcolorscheme(:mygrays, [RGB{Float64}(i, i, i) for i in 0:0.1:1.0],
     "useful schemes", "just some dull grey shades")

and that will be added (temporarily).

julia> findcolorscheme("dull")

colorschemes containing "dull"

mygrays              (notes) just some dull grey shades...


found 1 result for "dull"

If you want to make more advanced ColorSchemes, use linear-segment dictionaries or indexed lists, and use functions to generate color values, see the make_colorscheme() function in the ColorSchemeTools.jl package.

Continuous color sampling

You can access the specific colors of a colorscheme by indexing (eg leonardo[2] or leonardo[5:end]). Or you can sample a ColorScheme at a point between 0.0 and 1.0 as if it were a continuous range of colors:

get(leonardo, 0.5)

returns

RGB{Float64}(0.42637271063618504,0.28028983973265065,0.11258024276603132)

The colors in the predefined ColorSchemes are usually sorted by LUV luminance, so this often makes sense.

You can use get() with index data in arrays to return arrays of colors:

julia> get(leonardo, [0.0, 0.5, 1.0])
3-element Array{RGB{Float64},1} with eltype ColorTypes.RGB{Float64}:
 RGB{Float64}(0.05482025926320272,0.016508952654741622,0.019315160361063788)
 RGB{Float64}(0.42637271063618504,0.28028983973265065,0.11258024276603132)  
 RGB{Float64}(0.9724409077178674,0.7907008712807734,0.2851364857083522)

julia> simg = get(leonardo, rand(10, 16));
julia> using FileIO
julia> save("mosaic.png", simg)

Matplotlib compatibility

Most of the color schemes in Matplotlib are available. The following code example gives a general picture.

using ColorSchemes

# https://matplotlib.org/examples/color/colormaps_reference.html

matplotlibcmaps = Dict(
   :perceptuallyuniformsequential => [
      :viridis, :plasma, :inferno, :magma],
   :sequential => [
      :Greys_9, :Purples_9, :Blues_9, :Greens_9, :Oranges_9, :Reds_9,
      :YlOrBr_9, :YlOrRd_9, :OrRd_9, :PuRd_9, :RdPu_9, :BuPu_9,
      :GnBu_9, :PuBu_9, :YlGnBu_9, :PuBuGn_9, :BuGn_9, :YlGn_9],
   :sequential2 => [
      :binary, :gist_yarg, :gist_gray, :gray, :bone, :pink,
      :spring, :summer, :autumn, :winter, :cool, :Wistia,
      :hot, :afmhot, :gist_heat, :copper],
   :diverging => [
      :PiYG_11, :PRGn_11, :BrBG_11, :PuOr_11, :RdGy_11, :RdBu_11,
      :RdYlBu_11, :RdYlGn_11, :Spectral_11, :coolwarm, :bwr, :seismic],
   :cyclical => [
        :twilight, :twilight_shifted, :hsv],
   :qualitative => [
      :Pastel1_9, :Pastel2_8, :Paired_11, :Accent_8,
      :Dark2_8, :Set1_9, :Set2_8, :Set3_12,
      :tab10, :tab20, :tab20b, :tab20c],
   :miscellaneous => [
      :flag, :prism, :ocean, :gist_earth, :terrain, :gist_stern,
      :gnuplot, :gnuplot2, :CMRmap, :cubehelix, :brg, :hsv,
      :gist_rainbow, :rainbow, :jet, :nipy_spectral, :gist_ncar]
   )

for (k, v) in matplotlibcmaps
   println("$(rpad(k, 12)) $(length(v))")
   for cs in v
      try
         c = ColorSchemes.colorschemes[cs]
      catch
         println("\t$(rpad(cs, 12)) not currently in stock")
      end
   end
end

cyclical     3
	twilight_shifted not currently in stock
sequential   18
qualitative  12
sequential2  16
	gray         not currently in stock
perceptuallyuniformsequential 4
diverging    12
miscellaneous 17